The Remaining - 01

by D. J. Molles

  Lee pulled out an M4 assault rifle with an M203 grenade launcher attached to the piccatinny rails under the barrel. He had Dura-coated the entire rifle in splotchy tans and light greens. He laid this on the ground. Underneath it he placed thirteen empty 30-round magazines. The magazines were polymer rather than the usually aluminum “box magazines.” The advantage was that the polymer magazines fed more reliably and were “true 30-round magazines.” Aluminum box magazines could be loaded with 30 rounds, but it was not advisable, as they often jammed when fully loaded, but the polymer magazines could hold all 30 rounds with a little room to spare.

  Next to the M4 and his magazines, he placed a green ammo can containing a thousand rounds of 5.56mm ammunition. He also had a case of 40mm grenades. He pulled out another, smaller ammo can that contained a thousand rounds of .45 pistol ammunition. He pulled out a Heckler & Koch MK23 USSOCOM and placed it next to the smaller ammo can.

  While he personally preferred the Glock platform for pistols, Lee chose the H&K MK23 for the combination of its detachable suppressor and the stopping power of its .45 caliber round.

  Bring plenty of ammunition that packs a stopping punch, Frank had said.

  He would also carry the smaller Glock 19 as a backup, which was 9mm. He had a box of 100 cartridges for the 9mm, as he intended to only load the three magazines that went with it. The 9mm was smaller and less powerful, but excellent as an urban survival weapon, because 9mm ammunition could be found everywhere and in significant quantities.

  Left on the shelf was a wooden case containing fragmentation grenades. He would leave those until he was ready to load up and move out. On the racks he pulled down a pair of satellite phones, large things that looked like cell phones did in the early 90’s. He was unsure how long these satellite-reliant items would last, as it was likely that the satellites they used would fall out of orbit without human intervention. He would take them anyway.

  He also had a handheld GPS device for land navigation. This he set aside next to his go-to-hell pack. That device was his bread and butter, the life blood of his mission. Without that GPS device, he was just another survivor.

  He pulled out a folded pair of multicam combat pants and shirt. He liked the shirt and pants for the built-in elbow and knee pads, and the zippered flap on the ass of the pants for taking a shit without having to be caught, literally with his pants down. He preferred multicam as a pattern. Though other more modern camouflages had been touted as superior, he found that multicam was effective in almost any environment, while the others stood out in certain places, or were generally too dark.

  He set these off to the side. He would wear them when he left.

  He had two extra sets of each that he would pack, one in his main pack, and one in his go-to-hell pack. He would also carry some civilian clothing: a pair of khakis, a pair of jeans, a few polo shirts, and a fleece for colder weather. For extreme cold he had a tan Gortex jacket that was rated for -32 degrees. Overkill for North Carolina, but better slightly warm than freezing cold.

  The civilian clothing was for integration with “Indigenous Personnel”, which in this case, would be American citizens. Should he ever need to hide in plain sight, he would be wearing his civvies.

  Inside the closet he pulled out a large charging board with four slots for a radio to be locked in and recharged. He plugged this into an outlet in the closet. He slapped rechargeable batteries in four VHF radios and filled the slots on the charging board. Even without the use of repeaters, the VHF radios had a range of several miles over most terrain. He would pack all four, along with the charging board. He set aside a pre-packed medical aid kit that had everything one would need for minor surgery and life-saving efforts on himself or a third party. Lee was a trained combat medic, as were all of the Coordinators. The medical kit would be attached with ALICE clips to the MOLLE webbing on the back of his main pack.

  The remainder of the closet space was taken up by cases of MRE’s and water. He would leave those until he needed to pack them when he was preparing to leave.

  He stood back from his array of gear. He didn’t feel good looking at the gear anymore. Every day he woke up for the last two weeks he had thought to himself that none of it was real. He would not believe it until he looked at the calendar and saw that it was in fact, far past July 3rd.

  Though he had long since abandoned the thought that Frank would call, he allowed himself to believe that it could not possibly be that bad outside, that his mission would not be difficult, that there must be some remnant of the US government still operating but unable to make contact with him, or—quite possibly—unaware that he and his teammates even existed. He clung to the belief that everything would be made right in the end.

  He had no idea how wrong he was.

  Solitude began to take its toll.

  After arranging his gear outside of the closet, he wandered around his bunker, thinking calm thoughts. He thought a lot about Deana. He knew he was idolizing her, remembering her as someone more perfect than she was. It was his loneliness, being stuck in The Hole for so long that was causing him to think this way, to cling to memories of the last, most meaningful human interaction he’d had.

  He stood for a long moment, leaning his head against the wall and tried to remember details about her. Pretended for a moment she was in the room with him. He wanted her to be there. He thought of how her pillow smelled after she’d slept next to him, how the small of her back felt through the fabric of the dress she’d worn on New Year’s Eve. He couldn’t even remember the color of the dress, but he could remember how she felt in it. And her kiss tasted like cherry lip gloss and champagne.

  He pulled himself off the wall and knelt down to his array of gear. He grabbed one of the M4 magazines and opened the green ammo can containing the 5.56mm ammunition. The smell of gun oil, brass and the musty metal container ripped thoughts of Deana far away. He loaded the magazine with 30 rounds, then the next, and the next, until all thirteen were filled. Then he started on the pistol magazines.

  Later that night he woke up with tears in his eyes and a sinking feeling in his stomach, though he couldn’t remember what he had dreamed to make him feel that way. He rolled over and went back to sleep.

  ***

  On July 19th he packed everything. His magazines were stashed in his chest rig, his MK23 was snug in a drop-leg holster, the Glock 19 cradled in a hidden compartment of his go-to-hell pack. He had enough water and food in his main pack to last a week. He estimated his main pack at about 80 lbs, his go-to-hell pack at about 30 lbs. It was a lot of weight for one man to carry, but he was trained to do it over rough terrain for miles on end.

  He was 100% ready. He paced his bunker, thinking everything through.

  Eventually, Lee returned to the closet and unpacked everything.

  ***

  He was listening to music a lot. It helped him cope with the sense of loneliness. Often he thought he was the last person in the world. He wondered if he would find a sole still alive outside. He thought that by the time he got to the surface, everyone would be dead, and he would be the only human being left. Alone for the rest of his miserable life.

  Sometimes he would think he would hear a noise somewhere in the bunker. The noises appeared furtive in nature and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Lee got in the habit of keeping his MK23 strapped to his leg...just in case. Technically, there was no way anyone or anything could get inside his bunker. He knew that if he was hearing anything at all, it was a perfectly explainable sound.

  More likely, his mind was playing tricks. Solitary confinement. That’s what this was beginning to feel like. For a length of time he considered the possibility that he was the subject of a secret government experiment and that his bunker was bristling with cameras and microphones. Somewhere nearby, a team of scientists watched him with intense interest and catalogued how often he brushed his teeth.

  He began talking to Tango, at length. About Deana, about the death of his mother and father, w
hich were both long before Tango was born, so obviously he wouldn’t remember. Sometimes they would talk about pop culture or politics. Tango never replied, of course, but between the music in the background and his own voice, Lee sometimes felt like he wasn’t alone.

  He was a survivor in a life raft, adrift on a world covered by endless oceans.

  ***

  It was July 23rd. A week and a half out.

  Lee sat on the couch with the chessboard before him on the coffee table, the pieces in frozen battle, scattered about the board, an invisible strategy forming. Dead soldiers were set to the side of the board, white on the left, black on the right. Across from Lee, Tango sat and panted on his black chess pieces. Lee had been thinking for a few minutes now, but Tango was a patient adversary.

  “You think you got me, but I’m only luring you into my trap.” Lee looked at Tango as though he expected a pithy response. Finally he sighed. “You know, the whole sphinx routine is getting old. Not talking shit doesn’t make you the better man, it just makes you a quiet loser.”

  Lee shuffled his knight in its L-shaped move and pushed a black bishop out of the way with it. He removed the bishop from the board and set it to the right with the rest of its fallen comrades.

  “Yeah,” Lee nodded. “What do you think about that?”

  Tango sniffed at his king, still safely ensconced behind a row of pawns, then licked it.

  “A ballsy move on your part, Tango. But I don’t know if it’s going to pay off in the long run.” Lee eyed the board for a moment and then moved a black rook into a position that forced Lee’s white knight to run back from whence he came. After he moved the piece, Lee hissed through his teeth. “Ouch. You got me. No, seriously. You’re getting better at this. I mean, what’s the score? 2-3? 2-2? I know I’ve won twice. You might be smarter than me.”

  Tango rested his chops on the table and huffed, obviously bored with chess. The force of the huff knocked the black king over.

  “Oh.” Lee sat back on the couch. “It’s like that, is it? I’m not a worthy opponent, so you’re just not going to bother with playing me? God, you can be so conceited sometimes.”

  He reached forward and rubbed Tango on the head to let him know it was all in good fun. Tango looked pleased and banged his tail on the ground. Lee sat back on the couch and fiddled with the retention strap on his drop-leg holster. His eyes restlessly wandered the room and finally came to rest on the door.

  The locked and sealed door to the outside world. Well, actually to the basement of his house. But still...it was freedom. He wanted to open that door.

  Strange.

  He hadn’t thought of that before. After so many hours trapped down here, he had never even considered violating the protocols and leaving his bunker early. After all, if there was no US government, then there was no one to give a shit if he broke some protocols. If there was a US government, then there was no reason for him to be shut up down here for the next week and a half. It made sense.

  “That,” he pointed at Tango, garnering a look of confusion. “Is dangerous thinking.”

  He stood up and walked to the door, mumbling to himself. “Protocols are meant to protect you. The rules are there to guide you when you are not thinking clearly, such as if you have been in a sunless, underground bunker for the past month. Like me. I am not thinking clearly.”

  He put his hand on the wheel of the hatch, but didn’t spin it. Slowly he leaned in and put his ear to the metal. The steel door was cold to the touch and smelled faintly like the inside of a warship—metallic and oily. The sound from the other side was complete, tomb-like silence.

  Lee withdrew his ear.

  He looked at Tango, who was watching him with what looked like suspicion.

  “Well, what do you think?”

  Tango smiled, wagged once, and sauntered forward so that he was standing at the door, facing it. Lee wondered if it was as tough for a dog to be indoors this long as it was for a human. He thought that it was probably worse, considering how excited dogs got about going outside. He supposed the dog truly missed being outdoors more than Lee did. To his credit, Tango was handling his misery very well.

  “Can’t hurt, I guess.” Lee rested his hand on the butt of his pistol. “Well, actually it can hurt a lot. We don’t really know what’s out there.”

  Somehow the concept of waiting to leave at the 30-day mark, and then being snuffed out within hours of exiting the bunker seemed sickeningly ironic. It would be marginally better that, if he were going to die upon exiting the bunker, he should do it now, rather than wait another week in misery and loneliness.

  Maybe there are people outside. Maybe they’re good and maybe they’re bad. Maybe they need my help. Lee turned away from the door and walked back to the closet where all of his gear was still organized on the floor. At the moment he was wearing a pair of cargo pants and an old t-shirt. If he was to go outside, he would want to be wearing full PPE, in case things were worse than he expected.

  He dove into the closet and retrieved a duffel containing a fresh MOPP 4 suit. It was supposedly rated to protect against most biological, chemical, or nuclear agents. He was familiar with the getup from his time in Iraq. During the invasion of Iraq, any time intel was received that hinted at WMD’s being used, command would have everyone go to MOPP 4. He had spent many, many hours in that thing.

  Luckily, this one was new, unlike the one from Baghdad that smelled of old sweat and body odor. The smell never came out of those things. It was Lee’s theory that the charcoal lining sucked it up and kept it in there. Lee opened the duffel and pulled out the MOPP suit. Then he stood up. He grimaced. “You know what? This isn’t a good idea.” Tango tilted his head, ears forward. “You’re not gonna go anyway.” Lee waved him off.

  He thought for a long moment. Pros and cons of opening the bunker.

  First of all, he wasn’t leaving.

  Just opening the door, taking a quick peek out into the world. Recon. That’s all it was. And like any good special operations soldier, he needed recon in order to plan his mission effectively. Recon equals intelligence, equals good plans, equals victory.

  It’s all very simple.

  He wasn’t even going to violate the protocol. Protocol stated not to leave the bunker until 30 days after his last transmission from command. He would not be leaving. He would be scouting out his area of insertion. Possibly clear it of any threats. Make sure that when he did leave the bunker at the appropriate time, it was smooth sailing. There was no directive that stated he couldn’t recon the area.

  Yeah...Recon.

  “Okay.” Lee nodded to himself, then pointed at Tango. “But you have to stay here.”

  Tango didn’t register the words, but heard Lee’s tone and saw him point. He lowered himself to the ground, lying with his head up, curiously observing Lee as he readied himself. Boots went on first, a pair of Bates M6 Desert Assault Boots, which Lee swore by. After tying them snuggly, he removed the thigh holster and set it on the back of the couch. He kicked his legs into the MOPP suit and then pulled his arms into it and zipped it up. He pulled on his gas mask and checked the seal. He put on his pistol belt, then attached his drop-leg to it, and pulled the hood up over his head, making sure no skin was showing. Last on were his gloves.

  He breathed a couple of times with the gas mask on, got used to the feel of it. Then he walked to the hatch. He reached for the wheel, then thought better of it and returned to the closet, mumbling again to himself. “Can’t be too prepared...”

  He grabbed his go-to-hell pack and slung it over his shoulders. He snapped the chest belt on and pivoted his torso several times, then tightened the shoulder straps, then repeated the pivoting. Satisfied that the pack was secure on his person, he walked back to the door and grabbed the wheel with both hands.

  He looked at Tango, as though seeking approval.

  “Fuck it. I’m doin’ it.” He cranked the wheel hard to the left and broke the seal.

  He didn’t know that he had
just made a horrible and irreversible decision.

  CHAPTER 4: BREAK OUT

  Lee pushed the door out and it swung open on well-oiled hinges, not making a sound. He stood to the side of the doorway, half of his head peering into the gloomy tunnel beyond, he pictured himself and thought he maybe looked like Kilroy, except for the gas mask covering his face. In any case, he wanted to avoid backlighting himself in the door frame if there were any hostiles. This was known as “avoiding the fatal funnel.”

  He doubted any hostiles had made it through his house, into the basement, and down into the tunnel that led underground to his bunker. His house was secured with steel doors and steel frames, and all of the windows were hurricane-rated glass, made to withstand severe impacts.

  Still, if someone were determined enough, or saw the strategic value in his house, they could put the work in and find their way not only into the house, but into the tunnel to his bunker. Part of him didn’t believe that it could be so bad out in the world that people would be looting houses, especially ones as fortified as his.

  But as he had once told a new LT, fresh out of OCS and deployed to Iraq, “Complacency kills. Paranoia is the reason I’m still alive.”

  The tunnel before him was high enough to walk upright, but lower than a normal ceiling. Dim emergency lights glowed at regular intervals on the walls, bathing the length of it in a dull red. The width of the tunnel was a few feet wider than the frame of the door. Just enough for two people to walk abreast of each other. The tunnel floor was at a visible incline for about 50 yards, at which point the incline grew steeper and the remainder of the tunnel was hidden from view.

  Lee visually inspected what he could of the tunnel and listened for almost a full minute before he was satisfied that there was no movement in the tunnel.